The Supreme Macaroni Company (22 page)

Gianluca pulled the drapes aside to reveal a set of French doors to the balcony. He opened them and invited me outside. The view of the Mediterranean Sea was breathtaking, an expanse of the deepest turquoise blue as far as we could see. Everything was blue, except the sun that shimmered like a gold ring. The scent of the ocean, both salty and sweet, sailed over us like musical notes.

The port below was cluttered with sailboats that knocked against one another like ice cubes in a fizzy cocktail. I rested my head on my husband’s shoulder and closed my eyes. I opened them to his kiss. Before we turned to go back inside, I touched the plants, full with ripe tomatoes. “Gianluca, just like my roof.”

“Is the Hudson River this blue?”

“No, it isn’t. But God only made one Italy,” I told him. “We get Staten Island in the distance like Bali Hai. Which is not without its charms, by the way.”

Gianluca plucked ripe tomatoes off the fragrant green branches. He handed me a few, then gathered some of his own.

Sometimes I forgot that we were still newlyweds. Honeymooners. When I hit the wall in New Orleans, I hadn’t surrendered to marriage yet. Slowly and surely, I felt we were getting there. A marriage is for life, so what are a few quibbles here and there, and a couple of mysteries that don’t get solved right off the bat? My husband didn’t volunteer a lot of information. My mother said I needed to go on a fishing trip with Gianluca. You bait the hook, make him bite, and reel him in for the interrogation. Besides, we had all the time in the world—or maybe it just seems that way when you’re in Italy.

I was finding out so much about him, and as much as he fascinated me in general, the specificities of who he was, what he used to do, and what he cared about before he met me were all of interest to me. I just had to wait as he slowly revealed what he wanted me to know in his own time. A woman knows when there’s a mystery. After all, we invented it.

As we made love, I remembered all the things I treasured about him, and how someday soon we would have a baby who would remind me of those things. I was beginning to understand the phrase “the miracle of life.”

Gianluca held me close.

“Where are we?” I asked him.

“Santa Marga—”

“I know where—I mean this house. I want to meet your rich friends. Who are they?”

“No friends. I wanted to buy this house when I was married to Mirella.”

“What happened?”

“She didn’t want it.”

“Why?”

“She wanted to live in Firenze. She likes the Adriatic. Venice. Rimini.”

“And you like the Mediterranean side. Of course she liked the white beaches of Rimini and the cool waters of the Adriatic. The Mediterranean Sea is as warm as a bath, and the sun bakes everything like sweet bread.”

“I like the heat.”

“So you didn’t buy the house because she wouldn’t live here.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I bought this house after the divorce.”

“It’s yours?”

“And yours. This is your house now.”

“Mine?”

“I own it, and so do you.”

I sat up. “Are you serious?”

“Do you like it?”

“Like it? It’s a Barbie dream house.”

“Who is Barbie?”

“The doll. She had a dream house. But I had to share it with my sisters. This is better. Believe me. Much better.”

“You don’t have to share this house with anyone. Though your family is always welcome, of course.”

“If we tell my mother you have a house on the Mediterranean Sea, she’ll plotz! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Gianluca shrugged. “You don’t want to live in Italy.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to—”

“I know, the shop, the shop.”

“Yes. The shop. I held on to the shop through near bankruptcy, Gram leaving, Alfred joining. But can’t I love Santa Margherita too?”

“Of course.”

“Then let me.”

I got up and gathered the tomatoes on the dresser. “I’m starving.”

“I’ll cook for you.”

“In
our
kitchen!” If I had the pep to shout, I would have. “Oh my God, we have a kitchen on the Mediterranean Sea.”

Gianluca helped me carry the tomatoes down the stairs. I took in the house in a different way, knowing now that it belonged to us. The stairs built from terra-cotta tiles trimmed in black marble were stunning. The windows outfitted with graceful white shutters let in the ocean breeze. I adored the details of the place. Our baby would come here and know this village as his own. I couldn’t quite believe my luck.

Gianluca put a pan on the stove. He diced up some garlic and drizzled olive oil in the pan. He wielded the knife gracefully, just as he did when he cut leather in the shop. He chopped the tomatoes and added them to the mixture sizzling in the pan. He stirred in a tablespoon of fresh butter. Soon the air filled with the glorious scent of fresh tomatoes cooking slowly. Gianluca lowered the flame on the stove and put a lid on the pot. He filled another pot with water, sprinkled salt into it, and put the flame on high. As we waited for the water to boil to cook the pasta, Gianluca chopped up some basil and grated fresh parmesan cheese into a bowl.

“How do you feel about being a grandfather?”

Gianluca looked at me. “Thrilled. But odd.”

“Too young?”

“No, I’m exactly the right age. But I’m about to be a father again, so it’s strange.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t mean it like it sounded.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“You may.” He smiled.

I was feeling a lot like a first wife because now we owned a house I didn’t know we had before. I also felt that Santa Margherita was a place that was important to my husband, and he had never shared it with anyone but me, so it made us even closer. Emboldened by this new knowledge, I wanted to know more about Gianluca’s past.

“What was it like to see Mirella at the hospital?”

Gianluca chopped parsley for a moment without answering. He put down the knife. “It’s difficult.”

“Do you still have feelings for her?” We had just made love, and he had just shared this house with me, and yet I had to ask.

“Of course I respect her. But she left me, so I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“So you never stopped loving her?”

“I love you—that’s all that matters.”

“I’m secure, Gianluca. You don’t have to convince me that you love me. I get it. And your first marriage doesn’t hurt my feelings. Life is complicated. And you’re Italian. This is a country of dogs hanging on to bones. Stubborn is the name of a chromosome in the Etruscan line. I don’t think you’re a man who could stop loving anyone, including me.”

“You’re very intelligent.”

“Thank you. That’s always a plus when physical beauty is temporarily off the table.”

I went to the terrace outside the dining room. I peered over the railing. There was a terrace on every level of the house. They were filled with pots of plants and vines loaded with bougainvillea. There was vivid purple and the deepest green like a frame against the blue panorama of the Mediterranean Sea. I wondered if I would become a different person entirely if I could take in this view every day. Would I just give in to the beauty and never leave? To own this view and live in the scope of its magnificence might quell my desire to create beauty with leather and nails.

Even more tomatoes grew on this terrace. There were small trees in ceramic pots loaded with ripe lemons, and another with figs. I picked a few as Gianluca brought me a plate of Parmesan cheese and prosciutto.

“Look, honey. Figs. We need a fig tree on our roof.”

“They won’t grow in New York.”

Gianluca had never been to Brooklyn, where fig trees were as common as fire hydrants. But I didn’t want to fight, so I said, “Well, we have the tomatoes.”

“That’s true.”

“They grow beautifully on Perry Street. But I remember one year when they didn’t grow at all. I was around six years old. And I was devastated.”

“Why?”

“I helped Grandpop pot the tomato plants and water them, and had done everything in my power to make them grow, but when I went up to the roof, week after week, no tomatoes.

“We had Sunday dinners on Perry Street then with the whole family—the cousins, Aunt Feen, her weird husband. We’d go to church, and then we’d have dinner, homemade manicotti, meatballs and sausage, a big salad. Somebody made a cake or picked up a sleeve—that’s what we called them, a sleeve—of cannolis at Caffe Roma, and we’d feast. We’d laugh and catch up on the week’s news. And the kids, we played on the roof.

“So after dinner, I’d go up there and check on the progress of my tomatoes. One week, there weren’t any buds, not a sign of a tomato. They must have been bum plants or worse. I cried to my grandfather and then forgot about it until the following Sunday. When I went up to the roof, they were loaded with tomatoes—but not real tomatoes, magic tomatoes, my grandfather called them. He had made tomatoes out of velvet in the shop and hung them on the branches like Christmas ornaments. A vine of velvet tomatoes.”

“That will be my bedtime story to our baby. I’ll tell him that story every night.”

“Don’t leave out the part where his mother has a nervous breakdown. Let’s condition this kid early.”

I sat down on a chaise and watched the sun melt into the horizon like a pat of butter. Soon Gianluca came with our dinner. He set the table, then placed the bowl of pasta in the center. He grated fresh cheese onto the macaroni. I had never been so hungry in my life—of course, this was something I said six times a day since becoming pregnant.

My husband pulled out my chair. I placed my napkin on my lap, and he on his. I twirled the pasta on my fork, then tasted it. The linguini was al dente, smothered in the sweet tomatoes, buttery cheese, and fragrant olive oil.

“You got me,” I told my husband.

“What do you mean?”

“I surrender. I will live with you by the sea for the rest of our lives. Our son can learn to read at home. I have no desire to go anywhere else or do anything else ever again.”

“If only you meant that.”

“I do mean it.”

“Until your American ambition comes rushing back like a fever.”

“You think my ambition is a disease.”

“No, I’m proud of you. But sometimes it overtakes you.”

“Not when I’m looking at the Mediterranean Sea.”

“How about we pour everything into your career and make you a world-class shoe designer, and then you have your fill, and it’s you and me and our baby right here with the tomatoes.”

“I’m going to have a son, you know.”

“I love my daughter, and I’d love another girl.”

“Nah, you’re Italian. You want a boy. The only reason Italian families used to be so big was because they’d have girls and have to keep going until the son was born. I’m ashamed to even repeat it, but Aunt Feen told me that when I was five, and it stuck.”

He shook his head. “Whatever God sends, and as long as he’s healthy.”

“Gianluca, is there anything else you’re keeping from me?”

“What do you mean?”

“This place is awfully clean. Do you have a girlfriend, a sexy one that looks like Sophia Loren when she came out of the water in
Boy on a Dolphin
? Does she come over here and take care of the place when you’re gone?”

“I cannot answer that.”

“Oh, man, there’s more than one? I knew it. I’m going to find negligees in the closet and tap pants in the bureau.”

“They’re very nice ladies.”

“I bet they are.”

“Yes. Three sisters.”

“Ugh. Sisters.”

“They’re very capable.”

“Sure they are.”

“They clean the marble, they tend the tomatoes, they wash the windows.”

“I can imagine what they do for an encore.”

“You’d be surprised. They’re very flexible.”

“They’d have to be.”

“Especially at their ages, seventy-four, seventy-five . . . seventy-eight.”

“
Now
I find out you like older women?”

“I’m sorry,
cara.
I had to tell you the truth eventually. It’s best you hear it on a full stomach.”

“It’s full. And now that you have a full stomach, tell me. How many children do you want?”

“Let’s start with one.”

“Why did you only have Orsola?”

“The marriage wasn’t strong enough for a second baby.”

“Okay.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Our little one is a surprise. Is that okay with you?”

Gianluca got up and kissed me. On his way back to the kitchen he pulled two figs off the tree; then he thought better of it, and took two more. Then he turned to me. “I like surprises. I live for them.”

10

G
ianluca decided to take a ride down to Sestri Levante. An old friend of his had just acquired a small textile mill, and he wanted Gianluca’s advice about how to run the operation. I had the day to myself in the pink house by the deep blue sea.

The only problem with Casa Vechiarelli was that I couldn’t decide which room I liked the best. The rooms that faced the sea, including the master bedroom, were filled with luscious ocean breezes, but there was something wonderful about the back of the house and the garden with its stone pizza oven, chaise longues, and awnings. I loved it all, and I had to tell someone all about it.

“Gabriel, this house.”

“I got your text. And the pictures. Seriously? It’s gorgeous! What do you mean, he owns a house? Is the man rich? Should I put my feet up?”

“I have no idea if he’s rich. I think he just bought this because he loved it. His ex-wife wouldn’t live here.”

“Idiot!”

“I know. What’s wrong with people? Of course, I should send her a thank-you note for leaving him. I would’ve never had a chance with him if she had held on to him.”

“Are you sure she left him?”

“That’s what he tells me. And Gram says that’s what Dominic told her.”

“I don’t know. Who would leave that guy? I mean, it sounds like a smart woman would stay with him just for the house.”

“That only happens on nighttime soaps.”

“And in my family.”

“How’s it going in the shop?”

“We got a couple of orders for winter weddings. I took measurements.”

“I’ll get started on them as soon as I’m back.”

“You are having a baby. Take a break.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Val. Get real.”

“I’m not going to change my life because I’m having a baby.”

“You won’t have to—the baby is going to change it.”

“No. He’s coming to live with us, we aren’t going to live with him.”

“Are you drinking over there? Everything is going to change. Your father was over here baby-proofing, and he rigged the toilet. I took a wee, and the thing snapped shut on my Junior like the mouth of a mighty alligator.”

“We don’t need childproofing.”

“Not yet, but Val, the baby is coming. We’re going to have gates everywhere in the shop. Can you imagine a baby near the steam press? We can’t have that. Upstairs is your problem.”

“How’s your new apartment?”

“It ain’t One Sixty-Six Perry.”

“Why don’t you live with us?”

“Val, there was a TV show about it when I was a kid,
Three’s a Crowd
, and it got canceled.”

“I miss you. We’re coming home.”

“I wouldn’t miss me if I had a view of the Mediterranean Sea. Enjoy it.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I really am. I just miss New York.”

“Why? You have a man and a house, and he can cook. And I’m assuming he can cook in every room . . .”

“He can, and he does.”

“So forget work, forget New York. The Hudson River is a gray stream of mystery moisture in a dank, stinking heat compared to the Mediterranean Sea. Stay in the moment. Be with your husband.”

M
om and Dad picked us up at the airport when we landed. The expression on my mother’s face when she took in the size of me reminded me of the time we went to Sarasota and visited the tank of the Mighty Manatee. The expression was one of awe and then horror.

“Honey, you look . . . amazing.”

“Code for gigantic?”

“Oh, I’m not biting on that one. I had four babies, and I know exactly where you are hormonally.”

“Yeah, I remember that crazy place,” my father said. “You were there so often, we took a rental.”

“Now, Dutch. Watch it.”

Gianluca carried our bags to the car and put them in the trunk. As soon as we were in the car, my phone rang.

“We have a situation,” Gabriel said urgently.

“What’s the problem?” I looked at Gianluca, whose jaw had returned to its clenched position upon landing at JFK.

“We need a press release.”

“For what?”

“Let’s put it to you this way. All your vendors are nervous. They’ve heard about the factory, and now they’re wondering if you’re going to deliver your specialty lines to their stores.”

“Oh for Godsakes, of course I am.”

“I held them off at the pass. Look, I am many things, but I am a lousy writer.”

“Hold on. I know a writer.”

“Don’t tell me. Salman Rushdie is hiding in the leather closet.”

“Not him. Pamela.”

“She can write?”

“Really well. Call her and ask her to spin this thing into a press release. Something like . . . Angelini Shoes, in the spirit of their founders over a hundred years ago, are breaking ground on a new American factory to produce a retail line of fabulous American shoes in the Italian tradition.”

“Got it.”

I hung up the phone and tried to join in on the conversation between Gianluca and my parents. My mother was quizzing Gianluca about the house in Santa Margherita, while my dad did his best to avoid orange highway cones and bad cabdrivers as we made our way into Manhattan.

I put my hand on Gianluca’s. “Did I do all right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m hiring Pamela to be our press agent.”

“Whatever you want to do,
cara
.”

“You think it’s a bad idea?”

“This is not a good time to ask me. You already hired her.”

My heart sank. I always figured out how to consult my husband after I’d made a decision instead of before. No wonder he felt excluded. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. Pamela is a smart hire.”

“I mean, she’s in school, but she’s got plenty of time to take care of our press.”

“Good.” Gianluca smiled, but it was lacking warmth and kindness, which were on tap in abundance in Italy. I felt terrible, but the baby kicked, and I took that as a sign that he was happy to be home, just like his mother.

T
here is a tricky moment in the making of a shoe when the sole is sewn to the upper. The shoemaker almost has to imagine a foot inside the shoe as she sews, providing enough give in the leather to hold the shoe’s shape, but not so much as to have the sides spill over the sole once the shoe is in it.

In custom shoemaking, we do several fittings. Gram taught me that human beings, made mostly of water, have shifts in their weight. Not just losing and gaining fat but shifts in water weight, which occur daily and come from external factors like the weather, or internal ones, like a long run in sneakers that temporarily spreads the bones of the foot.

I was on the last stitch of a closed satin boot for a November bride when I felt a rumbling deep within me. I felt the baby kick, but this kick was followed by a low, hollow pain that spread through my stomach and around to my lower back.

I changed position in my chair. The pain passed. I stood next to the table to get a better view of the shoe. The cramping returned. This time, I draped my body over the table to steady myself.

Gabriel came in from lunch and saw my position. He rushed to my side. “Are you all right?”

“Go and get Gianluca. He’s on the roof.” Gianluca had decided to clean out the gutters since fall was upon us.

The pain subsided, and I knew I had a few seconds, so I went to my phone. I was about to call my mother. Instead, I put the phone down and waited for Gianluca.

The thought of him going through this process with me calmed me down considerably. After all, he had seen it all before. When you’re embarking on a new journey, it’s always best to go with the sherpa who’s already climbed the mountain.

“Valentina!” he said when he came into the room.

“They’re coming a few minutes apart.”

“Gabriel, call her mother.”

“No!” I bellowed.

“What do you mean? You wanted her there, remember?”

“I changed my mind. I want it just to be us.”

“Are you sure?” Gabriel said. “She has experience. Four times.”

“When the baby is born, we’ll call her,” I said softly.

Gianluca drove us to NYU Medical Center slowly, as if we were in a parade. Gabriel sat next to Gianluca in the front seat, and to be honest, he was reacting as though he was the one about to give birth. We had to drive about a mile and a half, across the village and up First Avenue to Thirtieth Street. Gianluca was careful around the potholes, and not so patient with people who crossed without obeying the signals. He laid on the horn and gave one poor jaywalker a diatribe in Italian.

When Gianluca helped me out of the car in front of the hospital, Gabriel jumped in the driver’s seat and drove off to park the car. The sidewalk was crowded with people going to lunch. The lobby of the hospital was a mob scene, and no one noticed the pregnant woman in labor. Gianluca guided me through the crowd. The whole time I was thinking, I’m about to add one more soul to this circus.

When we arrived on the birthing floor, it was a madhouse. Evidently, there was a drop in the barometric pressure from an oncoming storm, and when the baby dropped inside my body, babies all over the city who were at term dropped too. There were gurneys in the hallway with ladies curled up in labor and one who was not so far along, who sat up and hugged her enormous belly like she was holding a beach ball.

I was taken into a small room with a divider curtain. On the other side of the curtain was a woman I couldn’t see but could hear. She was chanting “Om” as loudly as the law would allow. Great, I got a chanter.

A petite nurse came in and helped me into position on the bed. My water broke as she shifted me. The fun began. I remember thinking that the nurse looked like a cricket in a cartoon: all eyes, and so tiny, she could fit in my hand. She handled me skillfully and asked Gianluca to wait outside.

My sisters had told me to ask for an epidural, so I did. A Filipino doctor came in and gave me the shot, telling me if I moved, I could be paralyzed. I said a soft Hail Mary as he did his job. When he was done, he said, “Hail Marys always do the trick.”

I was wheeled into a birthing room. Gianluca took a CD from my duffel and put the music on. I was going to give birth to the music of Frank Sinatra, B. B. King, or Lady Gaga. It was anyone’s guess.

My husband sat down on a rolling stool next to me and took my hand. I focused on his hand, the shape of his fingers, the clean, square nails, and the strength of his grip.

My doctor, Alicia DeBrady, a beautiful African American dynamo, came in, took a look, and said, “Sooner than later, hon.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re about to have this baby.”

“Wait!” I said. I thought I had hours of labor ahead of me, based on waiting for Tess’s girls and Alfred’s sons. I remembered in some instances, I left and came back in the morning and the baby still hadn’t been born.

“Call my mother!” I shouted.

“You said you didn’t want her,” Gianluca said calmly.

“Just do it! Please!”

In an instant, I needed my tribe. I didn’t want my baby to enter the world without the family around her. I’d been there for all the nieces and nephews, and they should be there for their cousins.

Gianluca left the room to make the call.

“Girl, you made fast work of this baby,” Dr. DeBrady said.

“Are you kidding? This was the longest nine months of my life.”

“Well, you’re about to have him in the shortest nine minutes of your life.”

“It’s a he?” I whispered.

“No, I didn’t say that. I call all the babies he so I don’t get caught spilling the beans.”

“But what if it’s a boy?”

“Coincidence, Valentine. Coincidence.”

As Gianluca came back into the room, he was followed by a team of students. NYU Medical Center was a teaching hospital. Of course I’d forgotten this and agreed that I could be observed. Now I was sorry because a pack of students from Illinois, not my mother, were going to see my child born.

Every feeling I had during labor was magnified . . . love, guilt, insecurity, anxiety, and anticipation. I wanted to meet my child, and I wanted him to enter this life with all he needed.

“Did you get a hold of the family?” I asked Gianluca.

“They’re on their way, darling.”

“I hope they have wings,” Dr. DeBrady said. “Push, Valentine.”

As the students shouted their support, I pushed. The baby slithered out of me and into the light. I heard a student say, “Awesome,” and I thought, The first word my child heard was
awesome
.

Gianluca kissed me as the baby was whisked away.

“Where is he going?” I shouted.

“It’s not a he—you had a beautiful baby girl,” Dr. DeBrady said. “We’re just going to check her to make sure she’s perfect.”

“A girl!” I was thrilled. “We didn’t want to know what we were having, and I would have been happy either way, but a girl!”

“She’s beautiful, Valentina,” Gianluca said to me as he watched them weigh her, sponge her, and swaddle her.

The nurse brought the baby to me. She had a full head of black hair and tiny rosebud lips. She was warm from me, and I pulled her close.

“Che bella,”
my husband said. He often spoke Italian when he was happy.

“What should we call her?” I asked.

“Whatever you want.”

“May we name her after my dad? Do you like Alfreda?”

“Yes, I like it.”

“We’ll call her Alfie.”

“Alfie?” Gianluca smiled.
“Mi da tanto piacere di finalmente conoscerti.”

“Alfie.” I kissed my daughter’s head.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I couldn’t compare how consumed I was by the reality of her to anything else in my life.

I’d been able to work on one piece of suede for hours on end and was known for my undivided attention to detail, but all of it, anything I had ever known or done, just fell away in comparison to my total, instant, and primal devotion to this baby. She fascinated me unconditionally.

As in every life-changing event, there was no way to prepare. You don’t know what you’re going to think in advance, or how you’ll react in the moment. I had observed mothers, and loved my own, and certainly knew a good one on the street, but this was an altogether different sensation. My life had changed in a matter of seconds. And the shocker: I wouldn’t have it any other way.